GET TO THE POINT: LEARNING TO COMMUNICATE IN THE FINNISH ZONE Elizabeth Peterson University of Helsinki.

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Presentation on theme: "GET TO THE POINT: LEARNING TO COMMUNICATE IN THE FINNISH ZONE Elizabeth Peterson University of Helsinki."— Presentation transcript:

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GET TO THE POINT: LEARNING TO COMMUNICATE IN THE FINNISH ZONE Elizabeth Peterson University of Helsinki

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my very own Fulbright project, 2000- 2001 (Peterson 2004, my PhD) a few key findings about linguistic politeness in Finnish metalinguistic data from Finnish speakers current research on anglicisms in Finnish discourse 2Communication in Finnish -- Peterson OVERVIEW

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≠ ettiquette ≠ manners ≠ ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ not entirely, anyway for a linguist, politeness = a specific culture’s behavioral norms (House 2005)  there is no such thing as an “impolite” culture  we do not say that one culture is “more polite” than another  each culture has its own culturally specific ways of encoding politeness 3Communication in Finnish -- Peterson LINGUISTIC POLITENESS

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What kind of factors are Finnish people sensitive to in a communicative event?  traditional values of power, distance, and rate of imposition (of requests) (Brown and Levinson 1978, 1987) Are there signs of variation?  if yes, then we know that there are specific rules of politeness in Finnish 4Communication in Finnish -- Peterson QUESTIONS IN MY RESEARCH

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What kind of factors are Finnish people sensitive to in a communicative event?  distance is important, power seems to throw them off, and rate of imposition (of requests) leads them to all sorts of extra verbiage they would be quick to deny… Are there signs of variation?  oh yes What do we know then?  that Finnish has culturally-specific rules of politeness 12Communication in Finnish -- Peterson ROUND UP

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Finnish politeness is withdrawing and evasive modesty, a wish to remain inconspicuous may even mistrust or be embarrassed by overt politeness or flattery conversation begins only after formal introductions politeness forms are based mostly on loans from other languages; therefore ”common” people may consider them artificial or humiliating (hegemenous) 13Communication in Finnish -- Peterson POLITENESS IN FINLAND (YLI-VAKKURI, 2006) ”EVASION AT ALL COSTS”

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What do Finnish people say about themselves and their language and customs? Four major themes... 14Communication in Finnish -- Peterson PART 2 OF MY DISSERTATION RESEARCH

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“I think that in Finnish we go straight to the point. In English you have all these words that might make it softer, but they don’t mean anything. But our culture is maybe such that we don’t have such little chat … but it depends on the way you were raised, what sort of family you come from, what sort of manners you have.” (51-year-old female) 15Communication in Finnish -- Peterson 1. FINNISH HONESTLY PRECLUDES SMALL-TALK AND OTHER SUCH FRIVOLITIES

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“We are used to obeying all sorts of rules. All sorts of these regulations and directives that the EU makes, Finland is always the first to do them, and on time! In all the media, it is reported how Finns did this without any criticism at all! Sometimes I feel like the whole EU is just laughing at Finns and how they go and do all the things without even questioning.” (29-year-old female) 16Communication in Finnish -- Peterson 2. FINNS ARE LAW- ABIDING

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“I would say that we in Helsinki are less cordial than most people in Europe … Politeness has grown in the last 10 to 25 years, maybe because we want to be more European. More … sivistynyt (‘civilized’). I think Finnish people try to treat strangers better than they treat other Finns. They try to be more polite.” (27-year-old male) 17Communication in Finnish -- Peterson 3. THE TIMES THEY ARE A – CHANGING... AND SO IS OUR LANGUAGE

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“In Finnish, if you say kiitos, it really means ‘please.’ You can’t use it all the time like you do in English. Or maybe I could say ‘Voisitko olla hiljaa?’ [‘Could you be quiet?’], and the please is in the conditional verb.” (31-year-old female) – backs up quantitative results criticism of the use of please in English: “you use it all the time.” 19Communication in Finnish -- Peterson LANGUAGE VS. LANGUAGE USE: POLITENESS

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my obsession with ”the magic word” anglicisms in Finnish 20Communication in Finnish -- Peterson MY MOST CURRENT RESEARCH

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kiitos and pliis: (Peterson & Vaattovaara 2014) syntactically: pliis preferred clause medially; kiitos clause finally semantically/pragmatically: different types of utterances/intention regionally and socially: pliis is associated with young, urban women – but is used to a significant extent by men, as well kiitos serves as a marker of negative politeness, whereas pliis serves as a marker of positive politeness – a gap in the pragmatic system of Finnish? 24Communication in Finnish -- Peterson “NEW” VS “OLD” POLITENESS MARKERS IN FINNISH

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preposition, adverb semantic overlap in Finnish with standard form noin about also behaves in ways that do not overlap with English ’about’ or Finnish noin (Nykopp 2013) 25Communication in Finnish -- Peterson ABOUT ‘about’

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Oh my god, must tuntuu et joku tulee tonne huoneeseen jat sit se on silleen omg te tapoitte hänet. ’oh my god, I feel like someone is going to walk into that room and he’ll be like, ’omg, you killed her.’ (Antturi 2014) 27Communication in Finnish -- Peterson Janice, a character from the American TV series Friends

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social: young, global, urban pragmatic: low social distance, solidarity, informality 28Communication in Finnish -- Peterson WHAT WORKLOAD DO THESE FORMS SHARE IN FINNISH? A wrongly parked car caused a tram traffic jam in Helsinki six times yesterday. Pliis, remember to leave 80 cm between the side mirror and the rails! example 1: Deputy Mayor of Helsinki (December 2012)

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29Anglicisms in Finnish -- Peterson “The burgers were quite all right, but who ever heard of being charged 1.50 euros for water in Finland without even being told in advance?” example 2: Finnish celebrity chef, June 2013: ”Watergate” “Yeah, and the staff that brings you the glass costs nothing? You can and may complain, but you have to have a reason. At home it’s free. Not in a restaurant.”

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it’s a different country, with different cultural norms. Their aptitude in English might throw you off, but for many people, knowledge of English does not equal knowledge of American or English cultural norms. for many Finns, even their English can be used in a ”Finnish” way when it comes to conversational norms, pragmatics and politeness 31Communication in Finnish -- Peterson TAKE-HOME MESSAGE